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I’m over here just as slow as a turtle

This morning I only managed to pull off 3 miles. My legs are still sore and I mean really, really sore from the barre workout of Tuesday, but I’m determined to do another barre workout this week. I can’t help but think that if it made me this sore then there must be some progress happening, right?

I certainly hope so.

Yesterday around lunch time I ventured outside to water my plants. I have a double purple angel trumpet that is full of beautiful flowers right now. Unfortunately, they are highly toxic and can cause severe allergic reactions but my main concern is their reputation as a hallucinogenic.

Because of all these things, I keep the flowers hidden behind some other shrubs and greenery but I wanted to show y’all the pictures because they are quite beautiful.

After I watered the plants, I noticed the mallards were out and wanted some food so I went inside and got some bread to feed them. By this time they were on the pond and as I threw the bread into the water I noticed something else was eating it.

Why yes, yes they are. They are slider Turtles.

Really? So do I. they are so cute. Within about 10 minutes, there were at least 40-50 of them around me. They were all over the place. Some were green sliders, some were yellow bellied sliders and some were red eared sliders. I knew we had a lot of them but I had no idea we had that many. And they were so hungry!

I had been feeding them for around 10 minutes or so when I heard a large splash in the pond. Very. Loud.

I looked over and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I saw an alligator snapping turtle and it wasn’t a small one. This thing had to be at least 80-100 pounds, I kid you not. And it was hungry. I know this because it made a beeline for the bread.

I quickly got out my camera but by this time it was moving toward the other side of the pond. I still managed to get a few pictures of his head and one shot of him from across the pond but nothing close up. (That would have been way too scary anyway).

Seriously. That is just his head. It was huge. And keep in mind, these things are aggressive.

Of course you do.

But did you see his massive head?

I tried like hell to get a close up of his entire body but I just couldn’t but in case you’re wondering what an alligator snapping turtle in Florida actually looks like or how big it was, this picture I found on Google is a very close resemblance:

After watching it for a bit, I went back inside but when MacGyver got home, I told him all about it and showed him pictures of the head. He had to see it so we headed out towards the pond.

On the way over, we saw the mallards and I bent down with a piece of bread and one of them took it right out of my hand. Of course I got a little cocky about that because it made MacGyver jealous.

When we got to the pond we threw some bread out for the turtles. Unfortunately the snapper never came, only the slider turtle, and not to be outdone MacGyver decided that he was going to one-up me.

This is what he did:

In case you can’t tell in that picture, the turtle is eating out of his hand. Here’s a close up because I’m pretty sure he’d want me to show it to you.

Now that’s a guy who really does love turtles.

Shut up Kim!

We’re regular Dr. and Mrs. Doolittle around here. I’m going to go ahead and end the post here because I want to get my workout in and finish work so I can go look for that snapper again. It was amazing and hopefully I’ll get a close up picture.

Do you like turtles?
Ever had a wild animal eat out of your hand? What kind?

10 thoughts on “I’m over here just as slow as a turtle”

Reading your blog is like a walk in nature without having to leave my kitchen table! Our koi carp were recently ‘stolen’ from our pond – we have many suspects. Herons, other big birds whose names we don’t know and the folk who sold us the fish. This is my theory cause I think they want us to go and buy our fish back from them.
Love your flower! Have a lovely day.

Awe, you are so sweet. We too have a Koi pond except we don’t have any koi. We used to, I bought hundreds of dollars worth of koi and kept re-stocking the little pond but no matter how many I put in there, they kept disappearing. Only after 6 months did I catch the culprit. Herons! They came round about 4am every morning. Someone suggested we put a fine mesh wire over the pond which we did and then guess what? Those boogers chewed a hole in it. It could be something else but don’t be so quick to rule out the herons… Have a wonderful weekend 🙂

That alligator snapping turtle is fugly! I love turtles… in hawaiian they are called honu. I have a tat of one on my arm. They are protected in hawaii and I’ll always relate to the turtle (and even the tortoise)… slow and smooth. In hawaii the honu is the symbol of longevity, peace, good luck, humility, long life and the spirit within.

I LOVE that! I have rescued many turtles and also gopher tortoises which are protected. They’re amazing creatures. We have a snapper in our pond and legend around here is that he is at least 100 years old! Slow and steady must pay off 🙂